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An optimization tool to design the field of a solar power tower plant allowing heliostats of different sizes
Author(s) -
Carrizosa Emilio,
DomínguezBravo CarmenAna,
FernándezCara Enrique,
Quero Manuel
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
international journal of energy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.808
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1099-114X
pISSN - 0363-907X
DOI - 10.1002/er.3684
Subject(s) - heliostat , field (mathematics) , tower , concentrated solar power , power station , power (physics) , engineering , solar energy , computer science , electrical engineering , physics , mathematics , civil engineering , quantum mechanics , pure mathematics
Summary The design of a solar power tower plant involves the optimization of the heliostat field layout. Fields are usually designed to have all heliostats of identical size. Although the use of a single heliostat size has been questioned in the literature, there are no tools to design fields with heliostats of several sizes at the same time. In this paper, the problem of optimizing the heliostat field layout of a system with heliostats of different sizes is addressed. We present an optimization tool to design solar plants allowing two heliostat sizes. The methodology is illustrated with a particular example considering different heliostat costs. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.